Redemption in Jesus

How should we respond to the redemption we've received in Jesus?

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Answer

The final redemption that we are going to receive through Jesus is so unbelievably beautiful and glorious that our response has to be a sort of total response of our entire being to what God has done and promises to do for us in Jesus Christ. That's what I understand 1 John 3 to be saying when John says, "We're now the children of God, but it does not appear to us what we shall be, but we know this, when he is revealed, we shall be like him." So anyone who has this hope in him purifies himself as he is pure. If the goal of God's redemption is to transform us into the image of Jesus Christ, if the goal of God's redemption in our lives is to bring us into a perfect union with him, a perfect relationship of loving trust and obedience, if the goal of God's redemption is to fill us with his love and his Spirit so that forever we are not just enjoying heaven, but forever heaven is living in us, then our response now can be only one thing: Lord make me as much like Jesus in this life as a human being can possibly be. I don't know what that looks like, I don't know how it works, but Lord, make me into all that you can make out of me. I give you my all, I give you my life, I surrender all that I am to you. I don't want to live for anything else, anything less than your perfect and complete redemption at work in my life now.